


spare me from the awful things in life that come

by sebbykurt



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: I'm so sorry, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-03-08
Packaged: 2018-05-25 10:08:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6190768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sebbykurt/pseuds/sebbykurt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re worried about someone who doesn’t even like you.”<br/>It stings, but he ignores it.  “I care about everybody.  <i>Jesus</i>, remember?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	spare me from the awful things in life that come

**Author's Note:**

> basically, i was torn between wanting to write something silly and something super angsty, and this is what came creeping out. my rickyl heart has been broken, so i'm putting my faith into the new-found beauty that is daryl/jesus. 
> 
> (also...please don't hate me)

Daryl hits Jesus like a punch to the face (both literally and figuratively – he can still feel the sharp jam of knuckles against bone).

It doesn’t make sense, really, when he stops to think about it.

Nobody is entirely accepting of him (except, maybe, for Maggie, who even let him feel the small bump of her belly when she felt the first few moments of movement), but Rick is far kinder.  He smiles until his eyes wrinkle and offers bites of his candy bar.  Not to mention, he’s got a _great_ ass, but it’s not the same ass that follows Jesus into his dreams.

Because _that_ …

That privilege belongs to Daryl Dixon.

And _it doesn’t make sense_ , because Daryl is constantly giving him the cold shoulder.  Things only get worse after words spreads about Rick and Michonne, as if Jesus _himself_ somehow _instigated_ the whole thing, when, in reality, it’s plain to see, even to Jesus, that the two have been dancing around whatever’s between them for a long time.

It’s just as obvious, however, that Daryl’s heart belongs to Rick.  Maybe not in a way he understands, if the way his eyebrows furrow and his shoulders tighten every time he catches Rick and Michonne exchanging fond glances or holding hands, but it’s there.

_Love_.

The unrequited kind.

The last thing you want to face alone in the middle of the apocalypse.

So Jesus goes to Aaron, because word around Alexandria is that he and Daryl are fairly close, and if the Gay Genius that is Jesus can’t get close enough to Daryl to even ask for directions to the nearest available restroom, then maybe he can pass the Rick Baton down to somebody who has access.

But Aaron, bless his adorable little heart, bursts out into _laughter_ when Jesus finally finishes making his point (which lies somewhere along the lines of “ _maybe you should talk to Daryl and, I don’t know, make him confront his feelings for Rick; let him know that he doesn’t have to suffer alone anymore_ ”).

“I really have _no idea_ what you’re laughing at,” Jesus huffs, folding his arms over his chest and fixing the laughing man with a cool glare.  “It’s clear that Daryl has some feelings he needs to talk about – “

Aaron raises a hand to stop him, shaking his head as his laughter dies down.  “Listen, you’re new around here, and you’re new to _Daryl_.  He’s not the type to talk about his feelings.  Not _any_ feelings, really, let _alone_ the romantic ones he might be harboring for Rick.  Not even to Carol, and they’re the dictionary definition of ‘two peas in a pod.’”

Jesus wrinkles his nose as the metaphor, but the mention of Carol’s name sparks his attention.  “He’s close to Carol, yeah?”

“…yeah, but, listen, Paul – “

“I prefer Jesus, really, and I’ll be seeing you!”  Jesus backs out of the hallway, heading towards the front door.  “Tell your boyfriend I said _hi_ , and, really, I’m wishing you two all of the luck in the bedroom department!  I’m pretty sure you two are, like, some of the _only_ ones getting laid around here!”

“Oh my _god_.”

xxx

Carol doesn’t like Jesus much.

At least, that’s the vibe he’s gotten since day one, and it’s the vibe he’s _continued_ to get from her sharp glances and tightly curled fists.

But he’s standing on her doorstep, anyway, leaning against the frame of her doorway while she stares at him with a look torn between anger and disbelief.

“Why don’t you talk to him yourself?” she grinds out, reaching for the handle, presumably to slam the door in his face, but he steps further into her house before she can attempt it.  He expects a knife to his throat, but somebody must have talked to her, because she simply sighs in resignation and shakes her head.  “I already have, for the record.  But there’s a lot you don’t know.”

“So fill me in.”

At this, her eyes widen a bit, and something that looks like _understanding_ clouds her eyes.

“You’re worried about someone who doesn’t even like you.”

It stings, but he ignores it.  “I care about everybody.  _Jesus_ , remember?”

She rolls her eyes, and suddenly the anger is back and the walls are built up.  “He knows that he’s not alone, if that’s what you’re so worried about.  He knows he can come to me whenever he wants, and sometimes he does, so just…don’t worry too much.  Now, goodbye, _Paul_.”

This time, she plants a hand firmly on his chest and gives him a good shove, surprising him with her strength and nearly sending him toppling backwards.

As he adjusts his jacket, cheeks flushed in what he refuses to call embarrassment, he sighs “ _call me Jesus_ ” under his breath and decides it’s time to stop bothering other people and take matters into his own hands.

xxx

Daryl sort of… _floats_ between houses.  From what little intel Jesus has managed to gather, he used to spend almost all of his time at Rick’s place, but more and more, he’s either been at Aaron’s, Carol’s, or even Tara’s.

Currently, he’s sitting on Tara’s front porch, fingers clenched around a cigarette that he doesn’t really seem to be all that interested in actually smoking.

The moment he catches sight of Jesus approaching, he moves to stand up, but Jesus raises his hands in surrender.  “Listen, I just wanna talk.”

“There’s a whole town of people around you,” Daryl spits out, aggressively snubbing out the remains of the cigarette with the heel of his boot.  “Talk to one of them instead.”

“Most of them like me.  Or, ya know, they don’t _outright_ hate me.  Like you.”  With anybody else, even Carol, Jesus would make himself comfortable beside them on the stairs, but Daryl is…different.  With Daryl, Jesus has boundaries.

Daryl snorts.  “They must all be blind, deaf, and _dumb_ to like you.”

“Rick likes me.”

Daryl’s eyes slide to his shoes. 

Sighing, Jesus takes a step forward, testing the waters.  When Daryl doesn’t flinch away, he clenches his fists and bites the bullet, slowly sitting down beside the other man, careful to put as much space between them as possible.

“You like Rick,” he states simply.  Like talking about the weather.  _It’s sunny today._

“Ain’t no secret.  We’ve known each other a long time.”

“As more than a friend.  You like him as more than a friend.”

Again, Daryl goes silent.

There is no denial.  No rage.

He only fumbles for another cigarette, hands shaking around the lighter, and Jesus doesn’t know how he should feel or why he thought this mission of his was so damn important in the first place.

“There are other people to like, ya know.  A whole town of ‘em.  Men.  Women.  It’s the end of the world.  Nobody really cares, anymore.”

Still, nothing but silence.  Silence and a heavy layer of secondhand smoke that makes a blanket over Jesus’ lungs.

“There’s _me_.”

It happens fast, and it isn’t _good_.  It isn’t fireworks or a movie theater full of crying girls, rooting for the dirty hippie in the old beanie, but it’s something.  It’s almost, _almost_ enough.

Daryl grabs him roughly, cigarette still in one hand, and kisses him with enough force to knock the wind right out of him.  People probably see.  Somebody _has_ to, but Jesus realizes, suddenly, that it was never about Daryl’s sexuality and all about Rick.

And that hurts something inside of him, but Daryl soothes the ache with the swipe of his tongue and the rough, growled demand to follow him inside. 

It isn’t Daryl’s house.  Tara and her girlfriend could still be inside. 

But they could die tomorrow, and Jesus isn’t letting this slip through his fingers.

Even if it’s not quite right…it’s _something_.

xxx

Jesus thinks, as he’s walking back to the house he shares with a bunch of borderline-strangers, that maybe, some day, Daryl could look at _him_ like he looks at Rick.  Things change.  Daryl could really, _properly_ get to know Jesus, and things could be sugar-sweet.  Cotton candy melting on their tongues as they hold hands and wake up in the same bed.

It doesn’t have to be this forever.

Rough sex and backs turned when it’s all over.  No goodbye.

He smiles.

Yeah, things change.

xxx

Jesus realizes two things over the course of the next week.

One: Negan is an evil, _awful_ man who will stop at _nothing_ to prove his dominance over other people.

Two: Accepting _Jesus_ as a nickname may have been a foolish mistake.  If life were a book, it would have been the sloppiest form of foreshadowing ever written.  He’d scoff at the lazy symbolism.  Put the book down and never pick it up again.

He is the sacrifice.  The man on the cross, blood dripping down his bare torso as a man with a hood pulled over his face stands behind him and Negan towers over him.

Rick is saying something.  Something that sounds like, “ _you don’t have to do this_ ,” but the words get jumbled in Rick’s panic.  Daryl’s voice is there, too, but Jesus can’t make out a single word that he’s saying.

_Stop fighting it_ , he wants to say.  _I chose to do this.  I chose to take Maggie’s place.  Better me than her, right?_

But he’s pretty sure that Negan has broken his jaw, splinters from the man’s baseball bat splitting the skin around his lips, and trying to talk only results in blood dribbling down his chin.

“You need to know,” Negan says.  “You all need to know what you’re dealing with.  It’s only fair, right?  That we give you a warning?”  He’s smiling.  Maniacal and terrifying.  A ghoul from a nightmare.

There’s no romance to it, which may be more of a tragedy than anything else.  It’s only pain.  Hit after hit.  Brief, bright flashes of faces he once knew.  A mother.  A father.  An old friend.

Daryl.

It’s Daryl that he’s looking at just before the final blow, red soaking his vision as the other man looks at him in slack-jawed terror.  He and the others are being forced to watch.  Triggers will be pulled and chaos will ensue if they so much as close their eyes.

Jesus thinks, _Daryl could still realize.  He could still see me.  He could still love me like he loves Rick._

His fingers curl into the damp earth.

Everything is black.

 

 

xxx

 

 

Daryl Dixon is being dragged away from the body.  Michonne is yelling at him, _screaming_ at him.  There’s blood on his hands and now it’s getting on her, too.  He hadn’t meant to touch the mangled remains of a dead friend, but he was running and dropping to his knees before he could stop himself.

Daryl Dixon is crying.

Daryl Dixon is staring straight into a pair of cold, lifeless eyes.

Daryl Dixon _realizes_.

 

 


End file.
